The humble, but no less caustic, side of the law. That's why they pay me the mediocre bucks.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Hearsay exceptions

Fanny Friend drops by Sally Student's house to visit for a mid-bar review pep talk. She finds Sally lying barely conscious on the floor. In her cold hand, Sally is clutching a contracts outline. Her two cats are standing over her mewing plaintively and pawing her motionless body. Fanny exclaims, "Sally, are you okay? What has happened to you?" Sally moans, "I'm not going to make it . . . I can't continue like this . . . I am going to die unadmitted to the New York Bar . . . I blame my father for talking me into law school." Immediately thereafter, Sally lapses into a deep coma and dies two days later.

Is Sally's comment admissible in a suit for wrongful death against her father in New York?

A. No, because Sally probably took too much Tylenol PM by accident the night before in a misguided attempt to sleep, and when she said that, she was just being dramatic.B. No, because even though it is criminally negligent to talk a normal person into suffering though law school and the bar, this is not a criminal prosecution.C. Yes, because it is a dying declaration. D. Yes, becease going law school and taking the bar really was a stupid idea and her father should have known that, having failed the bar twice himself.